Authentic Thursday week 5

I hope everyone is having the holiday season they desire! I for one have been sick with the flu and a broken heart...I won't go into details about the broken heart situation since it may come off as unnecessary whining. Still, it hurts :(

So my friends, in my last episode of sharing I left off with the details of my religion. As stated previously, I began exploring my creative nature and started a little painting business of my own. In addition to painting, I've always loved music and singing. In fact when I was around 8 years old I declared that I wanted to be an artist/ movie star/ musician/hippie. This was in many ways a result of a visit to San Francisco. We went there during the height of the hippie phenomenon in the 60's and my fate was sealed...I guess :) Oh wait! Come to think of it, my desire to be a famous singer was actually ignited a little earlier when watching The Wizard of Oz. Judy Garland singing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" was my earliest inspiration, I would force people to sit down and listen to me sing that song. Coincidentally, Judy Garland and I share the same birthday. Yep, Judy and I go way back :)

Back on track now. Circa 1996, I started writing songs. It's strange to want something so much when being a young girl, and then do nothing to nurture the desire. I just let it die...until 1996. Then I started writing like crazy. Amidst this creative expression there was something else lingering inside me, though I wasn't aware of it. My spiritual self wasn't being satisfied. My marriage wasn't working. Well, actually we were getting along splendidly as a sort of brother/sister couple. As a "married" couple, however, we really needed help. So I left. The whole thing. The religion, the marriage, all my friends...goodbye.

I had been renting a workspace in an antique store to do my art and there was a loft upstairs. I moved in and took my daughter (10 years old at the time) with me. My son was 19 and stayed with my husband. Drastic huh? In my own defense, I did seek help while in my marriage. It just wasn't enough of the right kind of help...in my opinion. Looking back I can see how selfish I behaved. I just couldn't do any better at the time. I spent 17 years with the same man, FAITHFUL I might add. After trying my best, I couldn't try any more. That was 1997.

Next week I will tell you about my conversation with God (or someone doing a good impersonation) This took place in September 2001. It's cool, I promise! I'm hoping to post a photo of a new creation this weekend so check back :}

Peace and Love,
Susan

Lest you wonder...

I have not forgotten about my commitment to blog every Thursday. I've been sick and will be back here next week to pick up where I left off on my "Authentic Thursday" post. I love sharing with you!

2011 Calendar drawing

And the winner is....Alison Fairchild! Please contact me and let me know which of the paintings you want.
Thank you all who entered the drawing, and I hope you've received your calendars already. I still have some to mail out so if you haven't received yours, you will have it by next week :)

Love,
Susan

Authentic Thursday week 4

All I can say is it's a darn good thing I don't blog for a living. I can barely write one post a week, forget trying to write every day!

This week I'm going to blast through 17 years of my life (1980-1997) and hopefully by next week I can bring this "story of my life" up to the present.

As I was saying last week, I began discussing the Bible with a friend (who later became my husband) which lead to my studying the Bible with Jehovah's Witnesses (the religion he was raised in.) I spent the next 17 years as a devout JW, actively participating in all of the aspects which are associated with it, including going door to door and preaching about the Kingdom of God. It feels really strange to be writing about this topic. Having since left that religion, I have typically maintained a certain amount of privacy or anonymity when it comes to actually naming my previous religion. My beliefs now are quite different from when I was a Jehovah's Witness, though I have no regrets for having once been one.

In hindsight I can see how I desperately needed something very absolute during that part of my life. I was completely lost and the structure provided by this religion gave me something safe to believe in. It's interesting to me now when I realize how often times, when we have a profound awakening associated with religion or God, we can assume this is the ONLY way to God. This is the ONLY truth. I no longer believe this, but I understand this is how it occurs to many believers.

In my 2nd marriage I gave birth to another child and my husband also had 2 daughters from a previous marriage. Counting my son, his 2 daughters, and the daughter we had together, we raised 4 children. I can honestly say we did our best to provide a loving home to our children. At the same time we were in so many ways completely dysfunctional!

During those years I started tapping into my creativity. I did alot of sewing for my daughters, and also began painting furniture for our home. I would find old junk furniture and paint it an antique green or pink (of course!) and eventually I attempted to paint roses on them. This eventually lead me to selling my painted furniture to stores throughout the Los Angeles area. I started doing this as a business in 1994.

Ok, I think that will be it for now. Next week brings a rather drastic turn of events, so please come back :)

Much Love,
Susan

Calendar

Just a little reminder to purchase your calendar before December 15th to be entered in the drawing to win a painting! For details, click on the link that says "2011 Calendar" at the top of the page
If you prefer, you can order a poster without the calendar and still be entered in the drawing...let me know and I will be happy to accommodate you !

Peace and Love,
Susan

Authentic Thursday week 3

I got swept up in the holiday and missed posting last week. Here I am back on track.
I am finding this to be a trippy and cool experience, reviewing my past in a public fashion. I still have trouble typing, it hurts my wrists. I hope to eventually get a device for voice recording and avoid typing altogether!

Last week I left off with the divorce from my first husband. There is something I didn't mention about that period of my life. Husband #1 introduced me to certain Christian beliefs. He was particularly interested in the book of Revelation and "the time of the end." I was amazed to discover people actually read the Bible. I'm sure it was my first time to pick one up. It felt so special in my hands. We visited a few churches, though never became members of any of them. We just sat around drinking mad dog 20/20 and interpreting things like the Antichrist, 666, and anything else that was particularly frightening. I remember telling my Mother that the world would be ending soon. She responded by saying, "oh I guess I shouldn't bother replacing the light bulb in the kitchen, what with the world ending and all." Gotta love that woman :)

Christianity would have to wait. I still had some partying to do. After leaving my husband, I did just that. I became a young single mother with definite alcoholic tendencies. I'm not fond of reviewing this season of my journey. I was completely selfish when it came to doing what I wanted. My desire to drink and "be loved" outweighed my maternal responsibilities. Who wants to get up in the morning and fix your child breakfast when you've got a massive hangover? Not this 19 year old Mommy.
I continued on this course for a few years until I had a conversation with a friend who would eventually become Husband #2. One night in 1980, after watching the Lakers win the championship, and throwing back some beers, we started discussing the Bible. Here we go again!

More about that next week...

Love,
Susan

Authentic Thursday week 2

I've made a commitment to post here every Thursday, and so here I am.
Picking up where I left off last week, or maybe jumping ahead in my journey...we'll see :)
The scary thing about the internet is we can all be publishers without an editor. Powerfully crazy!

Okie dokie now, I'm searching my memory and wondering which information is relevant and how detailed I should be in my disclosure. As I said in my previous post, I was rather discontented from birth and on into my teens. "Restless, irritable and discontent" to quote a well known book...
I did my share of "partying" so to speak. Starting in my pre-teens, I looked for outside artificial sources to make me feel better. Rebellious wild child!

At this point I'm pausing, still a little hesitant to provide too much information. I'm not so worried about offending anyone, it's just that I wonder how much is too much. At the risk of being completely transparent and tarnishing any glowing image you may have of me, here goes...I became pregnant at 16 and gave birth to a daughter who was immediately given up for adoption. That was 35 years ago. I won't go into the details of that, not right now...

I married at 17, had a son at 19, separated from my husband 6 months after my son was born.

So as not to overwhelm you, I'll close for now. Don't worry, it gets worse before it gets better :)

I wrote a song awhile ago regarding my past. Here are some of the lyrics:

See there's this girl and she's afraid to tell you...the many, many things she's done.
Yeah she thinks you may not approve of her past and you may want to turn and run.
If you choose to scrutinize her, you'll be disappointed for sure. Or can you love her for....who she really is?

Until next week...Peace and Love,
Susan

Coming Attractions

These are some of the images that are being used for the "Art Cards."

Coming soon!

Authentic Thursday

Blogging is a weird and tricky thing. Especially when you're not a journalist or even a writer. Why do I do it?
I think I started a blog so I could comment on other blogs, I needed a profile. Also, I was trying to create a separate identity from my painter/artist identity.
I chose a slightly unusual name "Femme Hesse". What does that mean? I made it up. I'm a big fan of Hermann Hesse and I'm female...so there you go. The title of this blog is "Naked Mind" a term I took from one of his books which describes a state of being...

When it came to separating myself from my art, I quickly caved and started showing my art here because it's easier to post a photo than to write something interesting and meaningful, at least for me!

I've titled this post "Authentic Thursday" which is something I intend to do on every Thursday, attempt to share something of myself in an authentic way...we'll see :)

If you notice over on the right is my profile which states "Life, art, spirituality, death." Those are the topics I had planned to write about when I started blogging, and I'm going to start doing exactly that. At least on Thursdays.

So let's get this show on the road! Starting with "spirituality" have I told you about my conversation with God? Probably not. And I won't be sharing that with you today because it would be best to lead up to that story with a little background history of my journey...

Please bear with me for a few weeks as I drag you through my early years. I willl eventually get more up to date with my sharing.

I was baptized Catholic as an infant, and raised by an atheist mother...isn't that quirky? Catechism on Tuesdays was my only exposure to the Catholic religion. My mom wanted us to have some religion, though she was turned off by the whole thing...

Ok, enough of that for now...let me tell you about my skin color. As a kid I had tons of freckles. My dad is from Irish/Scottish descent and I inherited his complexion. My mom, on the other hand, is Portuguese and has an olive complexion. I always wanted to be brown. I was a very discontented child.

I started smoking cigarettes when I was 12 or so. Oh and by the way, I was ALWAYS boy crazy!
Backtracking a bit...when I was 6 we moved to a community in San Diego called "Princess Gardens". It was a new housing tract.

It hardly looked like a garden, though it did have a natural beauty with the canyons and the hills all around it. Gradually the homeowners began landscaping and beautifying their property. My mom, well she tried. She planted ivy in the front yard. I don’t think it “took” if you know what I mean. The weeds tended to take over everything. We would spend our Saturdays watering the ground to soften it so we could pull the weeds. The only thing that survived in that soil was a goofy pine tree. It grew really tall as if to say, “you weeds can’t keep me down!"

Well, that will be all for this week...though I will share something from Hesse:

"Every man is more than just himself; he also represents the unique, the very special and always significant and remarkable point at which the world's phenomena intersect, only once in this way, and never again. "
Hermann Hesse

eir darkness, their suffering or fears, but a drop of pure light, eternal cheerfulness...

2011...almost

As you may have noticed, I'm offering 2011 poster calendars below...in connection with these calendars, I'm having a drawing!

With every calendar you purchase, your name automatically gets entered to win one of the 4 paintings above.
1 calendar=1 entry,
2 calendars=2 entries...and so on :)

This drawing will close on December 15, 2010

Peace and Love,
Susan

2011...almost

2011...almost

It's looking as though my website should be finished by the end of November...cool!

In the meanwhile, I want to present a timely offer to those who may be interested.
I'm offering signed, limited edition poster/ collage calendars for 2011!

The cost for 1 poster calendar is $27. with free shipping.

I selected some of my favorite paintings to create two calendars of your choice...you can pre-order now and your calendar will arrive by December 17.

Peace and Love,
Susan

friends

So I had one of the most excellent experiences I've had in a long time. I reconnected with my friend Debbie! We were so close as teenagers, and haven't been in touch in over 26 years!!! It was a magical experience to be able to speak with her and catch up after all these years...I love her :)





Speaking of friends, I want to send you to my friend Ilyse's website. She sells the most exquisite soy candles you have ever seen or smelled! I've included some images...and of course I still don't know how to create a link in the body of this post so I'll just have to type in the address and hope for the best....

http://www.aglowcandles.com/index.html



Like me, she's still in the process of having a new ecommerce site built, so if you want to shop, please visit her facebook page.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Aglow-Eco-Living/177376977256?ref=ts

If anyone would be so kind as to advise me how to post links, that would be fantastic!

Peace and Love,
Susan

Patience...and Pink

I have always been the kind of person to "want it now!" Life can be painful when I live it from that place.



So, patiently I wait...I'm having to start all over on my new website. A few misunderstandings, and a now I'm having a new designer take over the project. Such is life :)



I suppose everything happens for a reason...right?

Autumn

 

Sometimes I like to go through my portfolio and review paintings I've done in the past...the colors from this one remind of Autumn. Transition...

Tallulah

I was commissioned to paint this. I found it to be very fun and challenging as it's not my usual style.

Hope you enjoy!

Love

I don't know why I titled this post "Love." Just came to me for some reason...
Thanks to all who leave comments on my blog. I'm sorry if I don't always respond, I'm having wrist pain, and it's really difficult to type right now, I hope you understand.

Love,
Susan

In progress....

 

My new improved website is currently under construction! I will be offering greeting cards, mousepads, and other cool stuff for sale...I'm using the images above for mousepads. Can't wait!

Monday

Since I didn't want the agony of actually "choosing" a winner, I assigned numbers to everyone, and some of you had multiple numbers/entries based on the little extra promotion, etc. Then I asked my son to pick a number...you get it, right?

So the winner is Ashley Ruth from this blog:
http://getzblogging.blogspot.com/

Congratulations Ashley! Please email me to claim your painting :)

Thanks everyone for participating in the giveaway! Since there could only be one grand prize winner, and I don't like disappointing anyone, I have a sort of consolation prize for everyone else who entered. A 5x7 print of the Peacock painting will be mailed to everyone who entered this giveaway. So if you want to claim this prize, just email me and provide me with your mailing address.

Stay in touch, I'll be having another giveaway in the near future!

Peace and Love,
Susan

Sunday

Entry for the giveaway will close at 12 midnight...I will announce the winner tomorrow.
Good Luck! (seems sort of stupid to wish everyone good luck...)

Thrilling!

You want to know what it is super addictive? Coming on here and reading all the flattering comments...really, I'm so distracted I don't want to paint. I haven't really been involved in the blogging community, I think I could get used to this, being adored and stuff :)

I wish you could all win! Truly, if I were rich and didn't have to support myself with my art, I would give lots of it away. Generosity is a good thing, right?

I'll have another give away real soon, if nothing else just to receive these comments. Thanks to all of you for the support! Good luck...

By the way, many of these images will be available in print as well. I'm having stuff printed on satin for pillows, upholstered headboards, etc. I'm thinking the peacock will be really swell on a pillow...

Peace and Love,
Susan

Give Away...

So, here is my first official giveaway, and I think it's a rather awesome first! The winner can select from any of the paintings listed in this post.
I have but one concern and that is shipping outside of the US. I've noticed many bloggers limit their giveaways to inside the country, no doubt due to shipping costs. I read some dos and dont's on giveaways and was advised not to charge shipping. The thing is, I want to keep this open to international readers. All I ask is if the winner is outside of the US, please be willing to pay for the shipping and customs. Another option is I will pay for shipping if the winner outside of US is willing to accept a fine art print, or satin print (less expensive to ship) rather than one of the large original paintings. So please keep this in mind when entering the giveaway :)
Sorry to complicate things...

Mandatory Entry:
1. The ONLY thing you need to do is to leave a comment on this post and be a public follower of my blog. CLICK THE "Follow" BUTTON TO THE RIGHT! Just make sure to leave a comment for this entry to be valid.

For extra entries do the following and leave a comment for each one you do:
1. Add my button to your blog
2. Post about my art and link back to me (on your blog)
3. Post about Susan Brown on Facebook (include a link to the giveaway in your post).
4. Any other creative promotion you can think of let me know and that will count as another entry 
This giveaway will close on Sunday August 22nd.

Give Away...

Next week will be my first give away...I'll post all the information on Monday.
Yipee Ki yay :)

Voila!

So, I made an attempt to do some paintings based on Maria's photos...and came up with something completely different!
Let's just say these were "inspired" by her photos, in no way do they capture the magic and light that are found in the originals.
Well...I tried :)

Villa Villa

Tomorrow (or possibly Tuesday) I will be posting images of some paintings I've been working on that were inspired by Maria at Casa Dulce Hogar. She has some exquisite photos of the roses in her garden...I am not skilled enough as a painter to capture the superb gorgeousness of the photos, but I've done my best :)

In the meanwhile, please enjoy this painting entitled "villa villa" because it has such a happy, fun look to it that I was reminded of Pippi Longstocking and her home the "villa villa kula". I love me some Pippi!

Exciting News! (at least for me)

I'm so excited to be getting a new website soon! It will be easier to shop, and there will be some groovy new products to choose from. Also, I will be having a few give aways in the very near future. It would be awesome if you added me as a friend on facebook (I just got my account up again) so I can keep you updated as things move forward...:) my badge is over there on the sidebar.

Woman's World...

"Another world is not only possible, she is on her way! On a quiet day, if you listen carefully, you can hear her breathing."
--Arundhati Roy

The Sacred Feminine...probably not a topic I should be tackling at 11:30 pm. Especially because I'm too lazy to really do it justice. All I know is I want to help women find their power. This doesn't mean I don't want men to find their power. I just think it's time we tapped into the energy that is feminine. Joseph Campbell stuff you might say.
Peace...

Happy Birthday Natalie Wood

I keep editing, and re-editing this post. My thoughts are, "hope I don't offend anyone by saying 'Happy Birthday' to someone who's deceased." Specifically I don't want to offend any of her kin who may still grieve on her birthday. Though she's no longer with us, I want to acknowledge personally how inspired I've always been by the lovely and talented Natalie Wood.
I'm currently reading a biography of Ms. Wood, and interestingly enough today is her birthday. It's a cosmic thing dont'cha know...and I'm all about the cosmic stuff.


She was a woman whose face was utterly flawless, I really could just look at her face all day long! And there are plenty of photos to choose from.

According to her biography, she would never go out without her make up. Her need to please and be viewed as the perfect Hollywood star must have been wearing.


"I didn't know who the hell I was. I was whoever they wanted me to be."
Natalie Wood

I think I relate to that statement, though not to the degree that she experienced it. In other words, my journey has been about discovery as well. Who the heck am I? What am I about? How to be authentic? Where is my tribe?

Not being a true "writer" myself, I struggle to express my own fascination with this woman. She was such a little pixie, really. Acting aside, she had a gift of "being" that was cut short. I'm sorry for the loss.

Collage

collage by suzeelane featuring Betsey Johnson jewelry

Thank you ladies at Layla Grayce. They're having a giveaway over there and the entrants are asked "To enter for a chance to win, tell us about the most meaningful flower(s) you’ve ever received by leaving a comment here or on our Facebook page. Contest ends Tuesday, July 13th at 6pm EDT."

Such touching, sweet and lovely comments and stories.
It's cool when people generously share their life and experiences with others...

Thank you...

I have been extremely remiss in thanking some of the bloggers who have generously posted about my art on their blog. I'm lazy and irresponsible when it comes to saying "thank you." By the way, it REALLY helps monetarily when someone blogs about me. It gets people clicking on my website, and hopefully buying some of my work.

Mostly, I'm just not technically savvy enough to link to their blogs, etc. Also, I feel awkward, like I'm bragging. I know I'm strange. Anyhow, I'm going to give it a try right now...(tried and failed)therefore, I will put links to their sites on my sidebar to the right...I would so appreciate learning how to do this!

First, thank you so much to Susan Ellison at Bluesprings Home. She has been a long time supporter of my art. I owe her big time! She has a stunningly beautiful store in Costa Mesa, Ca full of unique items which she has artfully displayed. Please visit her site, and if you're local, drop by her store!
(link on sidebar)

Thank you to the lovely and generous Charmaine at "Beautiful things to share"
for taking the time to write such kind words about me. Charmaine has put together a truly gorgeous blog, bar none! (link on sidebar)

Next, thank you to Jennifer Ramos at Madebygirl for sharing some of my work with her readers. Very thoughtful. (link on sidebar)

Thank you to the gals at Layla Grayce for including me on their blog
(link on sidebar)


Thank you Jenny at Simple Casual Living. She posted a really sweet article about me
(link on sidebar)


I apologize to anyone I may have inadvertently left out, please remind me and I will be sure to acknowledge you.

Peace and Love,
Susan